| General Information |
| Distribution | In the Hawaiian Islands,
endemic to
Kaua`i.
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Habit
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Diffuse, sprawling or scandent subshrubs; stems terete, to 10-40 dm long, glabrous and often slightly glaucous.
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Leaves
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Leaves widely spaced, coriaceous, elliptic-obovate to oblong-ovate or broadly ovate, 6.5-16 cm long, 2-5.5 cm wide, lateral veins impressed on upper surface, raised and conspicuous on lower surface, higher order reticulate venation slightly less raised but conspicuous, lower surface glabrous or sometimes sparsely hirtellous along veins, apex acuminate to caudate, base rounded to subcordate, petioles slightly winged, 0.5-1 cm long, hirtellous at base on lower side, stipules deltate, 3-8 mm long, adnate to inner side of petioles, apex with a mucro 1-2 mm long, caducous.
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Flowers
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Flowers perfect or functionally pistillate, in broad, corymbiform, thyrsoid, paniculate inflorescences, main axes becoming abortive after second or third node, main lateral branches of inflorescence similarly abortive, usually after first node, the strongly developed lateral branches thus forming a broad diffuse inflorescence, ultimate branches terminating in open to somewhat compact cymes, these hirtellous throughout or rarely
glabrous, pedicels slender, 2-6 mm long, densely whitish hirtellous, sometimes sparsely so; hypanthium narrowly urceolate, ca. 1 mm long; calyx lobes linear or narrowly oblong-spatulate, ca. 1-1.5 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide, enlarging slightly in fruit, apex acute or obtuse; corolla green to greenish yellow, the tube usually reddish purple, fleshy, salverform, the tube 6-9 mm long, often as short as 3-4 mm long in pistillate flowers, hirtellous, rarely sparsely so, the limb strongly quadrangular in bud, apex not depressed, the lobes 3-4 mm long, spreading or reflexed, apex without appendages; stamens inserted just below corolla lobe sinuses; style hirtellous in lower 2/3, 2-lobed.
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Fruit
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Capsules subglobose, slightly compressed, strongly grooved and appearing somewhat didymous, 2.5-3 mm long, 2.8-4 mm in diameter, dehiscing loculicidally across disk, pyrenes separating septicidally, but remaining in the persistent vascular skeleton of the mesocarp, endocarp thinly sclerified, disk slightly raised, grooved.
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Seeds
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Seeds dark brown, irregularly cuneiform, compressed, angled, lower angle slightly winged, minutely rugulose.
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